Salthill Devon – unique draw - Messi Signs for Salthill Devon

2020 has been ‘Annus Horribilis’ in many respects and with little prospect of it getting any better before year end. For Sports clubs, when it comes to fundraising, it has been a bleak time, but people who run successful clubs are resilient and resourceful while trying to come up with the ‘new idea’.

Salthill Devon is running a unique limited draw with the centre piece being the ‘Messi Jersey’. It is limited to 100 tickets, 100 shirts – so everyone a winner – tickets will be €50. The top prize is, of course, the Messi shirt, 2^nd prize is Ireland U19 squad 3rd World Cup 1997 and 3^rd is a Portuguese shirt signed by the legendary Eusebio (shirt also signed by Packie Bonner & Ray Houghton)

But you could also win a shirt signed by

John Egan + Ireland team, Greg Cunningham, Méabh DeBúrca, Julie Ann Russell, Steve Folan, Ryan Manning, Colin Hawkins, Aaron Connolly, Daryl Horgan + Hibs Squad, Rory Ginty, Niamh Fahey, David Forde, Kevin Kilbane, Ruth Fahy, The Horgan Brothers, Vinny Faherty, Conor Barry, Timmy Molloy, Mick McCarthy & Martin O'Neill

How about Galatasaray, Inter Milan, Athletico Bilbao, Morocco, Panama! For the League of Ireland heads – Shamrock Rovers and many more; Full details https://salthilldevon.com/messi-signs-for-salthill/

The ‘Argentina Connection’ goes back 70 years with soccer in Salthill, starting with the 1950 world cup. At that time the club was a ‘bunch of lads’ with not shirts, no pitch – they just wanted to play. Read More Here

The Argentina story was born!

Billy Shaw, RIP a ‘Salthill Soccer Original’ related the story as follow;

He’s working in Moons of Galway, and Salthill Athletic is wearing Jes jerseys. (The Jes is Coláiste Iognaid – Jesuit secondary school)

“The pupils are threatened with expulsion if they continue to use school kit playing soccer, so Billy goes to his manager in Moons – Alexander Moon Department store Galway.

The manager, a Mr Leech, who is a keen soccer fan, and has put a window display in for the 1950 World Cup – would have been very unusual in those days

Although Argentina had withdrawn from the world cup, he actually had a set of Argentina jerseys and supplies them to young Billy Shaw, which they paid off piece meal.

Salthill Devon, to this day, plays in Light Blue & White stripes!